Mapping T-cell epitopes of rubella virus structural proteins E1, E2, and C recognized by T-cell lines and clones derived from infected and immunized populations
✍ Scribed by Dawei Ou; Pele Chong; Aubrey J. Tingle; Shirley Gillam
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1993
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 985 KB
- Volume
- 40
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0146-6615
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✦ Synopsis
Abstract
To design a safe and effective synthetic peptide vaccine against rubell virus (RV) infection, it is necessary to identify immunodominant T‐cell epitopes of RV structural proteins. To define such epitopes, 49 overlapping synthetic peptides (17–34 residues in length) corresponding to more than 951% of the amino acid sequence of RV virion proteins E1 (23 peptides) and C (11 peptides) and all of E2 (15 peptides) were synthesized and tested for their capacities to induce proliferative responses of rubella‐specific T‐cell lines and T‐cell clones derived from 4 study groups (5 women infected with RV in pregnancy, 5 patients with congenital rubella syndrome, 5 seropositive healthy donors, and 5 RV vaccine recipients). The most frequently recognized epitopes were E1–21 (residues 358–377) with 11/20 responders, E2–4 (residues 54–74) with 6/20 responders, and C11 (residues 255–280) with 11/20 responders, respectively. E1–10 (residues 174–193), E1–16 (residues 272–291) and E1–18 (residues 307–326) were responded to strongly by corresponding T‐cell clones, and were recognized by 4 or 5 T‐cell lines. T‐cell lines derived from three congenital rubella syndrome patients did not respond to any of the synthetic peptides. The results showed that more T‐cell epitopes were present in E1 (19/23) and C (10/11) than in E2 (8/15). The identification of T cell sites recognized frequently by RV‐infected or ‐immunized populations could provide the basis for selecting candidate T‐cell epitopes for the development of an effective synthetic vaccine against rubella. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.